National Guard Adjutant General's records, i 1895-1965.

This series provides a comprehensive account of the duties and activities of the office of the Adjutant General, the chief administrative officer of the National Guard (see the research note for a list of each person creating this series and his term). The series contains administrative papers, personnel data, fiscal papers, and historical information on the guard, its units, and its involvement in both state and federal actions. Correspondence with the federal War Department (later known as the Department of Defense) shows the evolution of the Guard from state to federal control, with the Guard required to meet federal rather than state standards in terms of organizational structure, equipment, and training. During the early years, the state adjutant general was actively involved, or at least regularly informed, as to the actions of various units even when in federal service. Later, the orders under which he operated even in peace time were initiated in the Defense Department, and hereceived little contemporary information on activated troops.

Routine administrative functions are thoroughly represented in the series. Administrative papers include orders from headquarters, the federal government, and copies of those issued by individual units; fiscal reports; bids, supply requisitions, bills, and service contracts; and annual or biennial reports to the governor. Programs for encampments and various drills are consistently included from the beginning. The annual summer field training camp, and related administrative and personnel issues, generates much of the regular correspondence, reports, orders, and memoranda. Replies to a memorandum are normally done on the same sheet or attached sheets and are referred to as indorsements (abbreviated "ind."). By the time of the World Wars, there are regular certificates of federal recognition issued to the various units, as well as increasing numbers of memoranda and orders from the War Department. Federal reorganization oflocal units also generates numerous orders, rosters, and memoranda during the 1950s and 1960s.

Personnel papers are also present throughout. These include some enlistment, muster, and pay rolls; morning reports (drill attendance); firearms qualifications; accident, illness, injury, and death reports and investigations; promotions, demotions, and reassignments; and for the first few years, oaths.

Land acquisition, construction, and maintenance at Guard facilities are frequent and voluminous topics of correspondence. Correspondence includes use of federal facilities at Fort Douglas, the construction of Camp Williams at the Jordan Narrows, and the construction of armories around the state. The correspondence relates to work done by the Guard, by private landowners or contractors, and by the Works Progress Administration. In addition to correspondence, blueprints, copies of land titles, and receipts and bills are all present.

The adjutant general's office was also involved in thedocumentation of the history of Utah Guard units and veterans of federal service from Utah. Correspondence and pictures related to designing regimental insignia are frequent. To obtain federal approval on designs chosen, the compilation of unit histories was required; thus, drafts of many of those are included as well. These include discussion of territorial militia history and unit histories in various actions, such as the Spanish American War, Mexican border campaign, the World Wars, and the Korean conflict. Histories were updated periodically, particularly following participation in a new war. Rarely, histories will include photographs or maps.

The adjutant general also maintained World War I card files on veterans from Utah created by the federal War Department. While the cards are not part of this series, there is frequent correspondence from the War Department in the 1920s and 1930s instructing the adjutant general to correct specific entries on individual cards. There are alsoletters from individuals and citizens requesting lists of veterans compiled from those cards.

Besides historical information, correspondence and related papers were created at the time of the various actions. Documented are numerous occasions when the guard was called into federal service. There is some correspondence from the Spanish American War. There are scrapbook pages from 1912 with clippings on the Mexican Revolution when U.S. intervention was expected, and correspondence, telegrams, and copies of orders issued during the Mexican border campaign, 1916-1917, when Utah National Guard troops were actually activated. During World War I there are numerous muster rolls, letters and oaths pertaining to enlistment in the Home Defense Organization and federal recognition of Guard units. There is also correspondence after the war pertaining to federal distribution of war trophies to the states. At the beginning of World War II, memoranda from the War Department proliferate, particularlyregarding activation of the guard or induction of individual members. Periodically there are memoranda of commendation.

The series also documents instances when the guard was called into state service. The Governor called out the Guard during several labor strikes at mines around the state during the first half of the twentieth century, and there is correspondence pertaining to those actions. During the 1930s, regular memoranda from the Salt Lake Police Department pertain to surveillance reports on strikers and communists or other "subversives." In addition to military functions, the adjutant general arranged gubernatorial inaugurations and receptions, so letters of invitation, copies of programs, etc. are included regularly.

Over the years, various elements of the series were separated out, so by the mid-1960s there are separate series for correspondence, morning reports, orders, etc.

Adjutant Generals

Cannon, John Q. Apr. 30, 1895-Mar. 9, 1899

Burton, Charles S. Mar. 9, 1899-Jan.2, 1905

Bowman, John M. Jan. 3, 1905-June 21, 1905

Geoghegan, Joseph (acting) June 22, 1905-Mar. 1, 1906

Naylor, Raymond C. Mar. 17, 1906-Jan. 25, 1907

Wedgwood, Edgar A. (acting) Jan. 28, 1907-Mar. 25, 1907

Wedgwood, Edgar A. Mar. 25, 1907-Jan. 1, 1917

Williams, William G. Jan. 2, 1917-Sept. 24, 1917

Lund, W.M.H. (acting) Oct. 9, 1917-Sept. 24, 1918

Jorgensen, Fred Sept. 25, 1918-Nov. 1, 1920

Williams, William G. Nov. 1, 1920-May 31, 1946

West, J. Wallace June 1, 1946-July 31, 1953

Rich, Maxwell E. Aug. 1, 1953-Sept. 15, 1964

Watts, Maurice L. Sept. 16, 1964-